We had this issue and escalated to Netapp support.
The problem is to do with whether symlinks are enabled on the share. In our case, once we hide the symlinks on the share, the cifs share is able to mount the subdirectory directly.
cifs share modify -vserver <vserver> -share-name <share> -symlink-properties hide
To quickly show all of the shares and the symlink status:
vserver cifs share show -fields share-name, symlink-properties
Unless your linux clients are making use of symlinks in the shares, then I cannot see any issues with changing this setting. If your linux clients are creating symlinks in the cifs share, then they will stop be visible.
For more information about Symlinks:
https://library.netapp.com/ecmdocs/ECMP1196993/html/GUID-9CA64CF7-63DF-41B4-8919-534E5FC92D2D.html
https://kb.netapp.com/support/index?page=content&id=1013782